'Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose'? Continuities and discontinuities in the funerary record of the northern half of Iberia

Abstract

An evolutionary approach on the study of the funerary systems in Late Prehistory allows recognizing diverse contexts of social crises in the north of Iberia. The analysis of the radio-chronological data that we have compiled indicates five phases of use—with the newness of identifying two different cycles during the Late Neolithic—and of subsequent ‘abandonment’ in the megaliths; this is reduced to two phases in the case of the sepulchral caves. We interpret the radio-chronological results through an examination of the material culture present in the graves and dynamics of the megalithic architecture. In addition, we contrast our results with different approaches, carrying out a complementary multidisciplinary approach. In this regard, we found that megalithism served as a vehicle for responding to the different crisis and changes faced by increasingly complex and unequal human groups.